


There Will Come a Poet

by littlemissnicole



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Female Runner Five, Nightmares, Trying something new for Five's dialogue!, Vomiting, post s7 e10 Blood on the Dance Floor, the meyers/cohens are only there for a handful of sentences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 18:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemissnicole/pseuds/littlemissnicole
Summary: Post Blood on the Dance Floor- Five needs a bit more care after that last run.





	There Will Come a Poet

Five prides herself on having a strong stomach, which is the only reason why she makes it through the gates and into an isolation room before she lurches for the waste bin and heaving. 

  
There’s a vial of the cure on the bedside table, she knows, but that’s- _not_ the problem. Five’s seen a lot, as a Runner and also as a survivor of the initial outbreak, but tonight, at the warehouse-  
  


She retches again, stomach cramping.    
  


The door opens, and Sam leans in, face twisted in pity. “You’re alright, Five,” He says, coming to sit next to her on the floor.    
  


She slumps sideways into him, hiding her face in his neck. “I can’t_….” _She starts, and then tucks her hands against her chest, flexing her fingers before starting again. “I can’t believe that people would-“  
  


Sam folds his hands over hers- normally she _hates_ that, it feels like people are trying to silence the one thing she’s got left, but Sam just pulls her pretty much into his lap. “It’s- well, it’s worth thinking about, because if we could figure out _why _maybe we would fight it, but it’s not worth- _this._ It’s not worth _not_ thinking about, I guess?”   
  


Five sniffles, flexing her hands again to encourage Sam to let go. He does with an apologetic noise. “Janine_?”_ She asks. “Peter?” She doesn’t ask after the DJ, who took off as soon as they’d gotten out of sight of the warehouse.   
  


“You know Janine,” Sam says, waving a hand. “She’s locked herself in her office and is currently trying to figure out what we’re going to do with a warehouse full of zombs.”    
  


“Fire?” Five suggests, but then shakes her head. “Too dangerous, I guess.”   
  


“Too much of a hazard to the surrounding area, and if the zombs aren’t incapacitated by the time the doors and windows are destroyed then we’ll have just released flaming zombs on the countryside.”    
  


“Too many to go in and kill,” Five says. Her stomach had dropped when she realized that the Rider’s had made the pills, and dropped further when she watched _two hundred people_ tear each other to shreds, and all her heaving hadn’t brought it back up to it’s natural place.   
  


Peter had the pills they’d acquired from the girl outside the warehouse, so Five didn’t know if they were more of the ones the Rider’s had supplied, since she was outside, or if they’d gotten some out into the general public.    
  


The hundreds of arms rise over the dance floor-  
  
Five shudders. “Peter?” She asks again.    
  


“Ah- I’m pretty sure he’s biding his time until he can disturb Janine without- ah. Losing his head.”    
  


“He’s still got the spiked E we got. Make sure he gets that to someone?”

  
“I’m sure Janine’s got it.” Five nods, exhausted. “Come on, Five, first a shower, and then I’m sure I could convince Max and Paula to give up Sara for a while.”

  
That gets Five to haul herself up, bracing one hand on the floor and the other on the bedside table, next to the vial of cure.

  
“Not a scratch_,” _Five signs reflexively.

  
“I guess you got lucky?” Sam asks.

  
“So lucky I don’t know how Jodie and I don’t have matching nicknames,” Five halfway jokes.

  
“_‘Five still Alive_’ isn’t a lucky enough nickname?”

  
Five makes a face. “That’s a_ title, _not a_ nickname.”_

  
Sam knows Five’s real name- she’d told him after her first, disastrous run with Nadia. “_That’s not- who I am, anymore.” _She had said. “_I don’t know how to be that person anymore. _Five _is the person that knows you. Five is the one who’s done all of this.”_

  
Of course, that was before Moonchild had made Five the one who’d done her bidding. But that was still- who she was now. The way the world was, now.

  
“I’m sure if you ask, Peter will give you and Jodie matching nicknames,” Sam offers, averting his eyes as Five strips down for the shower. It’ll be ice-cold, since she’s showering in the isolation room and not anywhere near any heated water, but she just needs to get clean.

  
“Let me get you some clothes,” Sam offers. “I’ll be right back.”

  
Five shivers her way through a cold shower, rubbing herself down with the harsh antibacterial soap that they only stock in the isolation rooms and in the hospital. The rest of the soap in Abel is just as harsh, just not _as_ antibacterial.

  
She shakes herself off like a dog before opening the curtain, groping blindly for her glasses, and then a towel.

  
Sam opens the door a tad, offering the pile of clothing. She gets cold easily, leftover from her American upbringing, and you’d think almost a decade of British weather would get her used to them, but nope, she’s still as easily chilled as ever.

  
The clothes Sam gives her are her favorite green sweater that is approximately 4 sizes too large for her, and a pair of sweatpants he’s claimed as his own.

Five yawns, letting Sam lead her towards the barracks. She and Jodie share, in the Runner’s building, but Sam, Maxine, and Paula have a set of bedrooms in the same building, just _away_ from the… _mess_, that the runners tend to be. Too many people in a small building, especially with as many different personalities as you tend to get with runners. 

“Oh,_ Five_,” Maxine sighs. She wasn’t the doc on duty tonight- that was Kefilwe, who’d looked over Five with a clinical air and then clasped her hand before ushering her into the isolation room.   
  


“Sam told us- some of it,” Paula says, holding Sara upright in her lap. She’d just turned a year old a month past, and they’d had a small party, just the 6 of them. Five tried to convince them to let Sara have a smash cake- but constraints what they were, they eventually just had to let Sara destroy a piece of her cake and not have her own. Sara was awake- whether it be _still,_ or was awakened by her moms, and was gumming happily at Paula’s arm, babbling.   
  


“I don’t want to think about it.”Five signs quickly. “I’ve debriefed with Janine already, and I’m going to see it all in my nightmares tonight anyway.”

“Orders from Janine say that you’ve got the next two days off the roster,” Sam says, “To let yourself recover.”

  
“Is there any recovery?” Five asks. She’s going to be seeing hundreds of faces in her dreams tonight.

  
“Well, not without rest.” Maxine says sensibly. “Come on, you two. To bed. Five, I know this is probably a stupid question, but do you want to spend tomorrow helping the three of us keep an eye on Sara?”

  
“You couldn’t pay me to stay away,”Five says, reaching forward to take Sara from Paula. The baby squeals happily when she finally makes eye contact with Five, squirming until she’s perched on Five’s hip, one hand fisted firmly in her aunt’s hair.

  
Five winces, and lets Sam detangle her still-wet hair from Sara’s fist. Their bedroom light glows bright in the pre-dawn dark. It _must _be closing in on three or four in the morning, not that they really have any specific grip on time anymore.

  
They talk for a few more minutes, but Five is exhausted, and when she sets off a chain reaction yawn that sends everyone’s jaws cracking, she bids Paula and Maxine a good rest of the night, taking Sara into Sam’s room.  
  


They’d roomed together, before Sara, but 4 adults and a baby seemed- a lot. So Five officially rooms with the other runners, but she spends most nights in Sam’s room. His mattress isn’t any better, but it smells better than the runner’s dorms, and it _does_ have Sam in it, most nights, unless he’s awakened by his own nightmares or night missions like tonight.

  
She nestles herself under a blanket Jodie made, Sara a warm, heavy weight on her chest, already yawning. Five hums as loud as she can, (_hello my old heart_) as Sam slides in next to her, one arm under her head and the other on Sara’s back.

  
“Things will be easier in the morning,” Five signs with a sigh, an old saying of her moms she refuses to let go of.

  
“Better not be in the _morning_,” Sam grumbles, nuzzling his nose into Five’s hair. “We will wake up when Sara wakes us up, and not a second before.” Five snorts, shifting Sara off her chest and closer to the wall.  
  


She rolls onto her side to let Sam spoon her properly, his nose buried in the nape of her neck. The warmth of him, and the smell of Sam in his blankets, and the snuffly sound of Sara next to them makes her relax into sleep without _too much_ hesitation.   
  


She dreams peacefully, at first. A normal day at Abel. Jodie and Peter and Sam, dirt under her fingernails.    
  


Something- _shifts. _Jodie takes off running, and then Peter, and then- the world doubles_, _and _distorts, _bending like warm taffy.   
  


The farm at Abel becomes the rolling deck of a ship, and then the bloodstained floor of her flat, way back. Her friend’s bodies litter her old flat, Sam’s blood staining the couch, Jodie’s hair flung haphazardly across the stupid rug she’d loved so much.    
  


The music from the rave the run before plays as they _rise,_ blank eyes focusing on her, crossing the room as they groan in sync with the flow of the music, mouths open to _rip-  
  
_

_“Five!”  
  
_

Five startles bolt upright, hands scrambling for the pan she’d held that first week of the apocalypse, (a sturdy, cast iron thing her dad had insisted she buy, because _‘you needed good cast iron_,’_), _the metal bat Mullins had given her,_ anything_, and only comes up with warm sheets.   
  


“Five, you’re _alright_, it’s just _me,” _Sam insists, grabbing hold of her hand. Five flinches, sucking in a startled, hiccuped breath.   
  


She looks at him, eyes wide and then she realizes- it was a dream. Sam’s fine. She’s fine. They’re in _Abel,_ not in her old flat, still stained with his blood, if it’s standing. Five reaches up to pat at Sam’s face, fingers running across days-old scruff and moving his head this way and that to check his neck for bites.   
  


In the next room, Sara screams in delight. The mid-morning light is warm and bright in the room, slanting across Sam’s mattress and sending dust motes tumbling.    
  


“You alright, Five?” Sam asks, sitting next to her on the bed. Five leans into his arm, tears coming quickly down her face.    
  


“What am I saying, no one’s _alright _anymore-“ Sam babbles, nudging Five’s face up to wipe her tears with his sleeves.   
  


Five laughs through her tears, straightening up and shaking her hair back out of her face. “Nightmare,” She signs, slowly. “Of-“ She flaps her hands uselessly. “What Moonchild made me do, and my _flat _and-“ her face crumples.   
  


Sam squishes her into another hug, not saying a word as she sobs into his chest.    
  


They stay like that for a few minutes until Five cries herself out, Sam rubbing soothing circles on her back, murmuring nonsense.    
  


Five eases upright, feeling less like she’s splitting apart from fear. “Alright?” Sam asks.    
  


She flashes him a short thumbs up, standing and pulling him up with her. “Sara?” She asks.    
  


“Woke me about an hour ago, but you were sleeping like the dead, so Maxine said to let you sleep- we saved you some lunch, nothing fancy, just a sandwich, but you’re probably utterly _starving_.”   
  


On cue her stomach rumbles, _loud._ Five flushes. “You’re right?” She asks with a sheepish grin.   
  


“Come on, Five,” Sam says, mood lightened. Five still doesn’t- feel good, but she feels better. _Lighter. _The horror of the dream has faded, as well as the horror of last night, which feels more like a bad dream in the light of day. It wasn’t, but _everything will be better in the morning _wasn’t her mother’s favorite phrase because it gave them the excuse to sleep the day away, but because the day’s problems seem more distant and manageable after some time.  
  


Five eats her sandwich, and plays with Sara, and it feels. Good. Useful. 

**Author's Note:**

> Alt. Titles: Evacuate the dancefloor   
Stop, this beat is killing me!


End file.
